This invention relates generally to the processing of semiconductor integrated circuits.
High fluorine content solutions do not wet conventional semiconductor substrates, and high fluorine content polymers do not adhere well to conventional semiconductor substrates. High fluorine content polymers and polymer solutions may include photoresist for 157-nanometer lithography, as one example.
To improve the adherence of such high fluorine content materials to semiconductor substrates, a reactive chemical precursor in liquid or vapor phase is reacted with a substrate to covalently bond the precursor functional group to the substrate. The presence of a new functional group at the surface of a substrate changes the surface properties, promoting wetting of material spread, cast or sprayed onto the surface that now has chemical functionality similar to the end groups of the reactive chemical precursor.
Generally, liquid/vapor phase processing involves expensive, specially designed surface active molecules. Moreover, the chemicals are effective only on the surfaces that the precursor molecules are specifically designed for. Thus, the existing surface modification technique may be inflexible and relatively expensive.
Thus, there is a need for better ways to adhere high fluorine content materials to a wider range of semiconductor substrates.